Day 25: Bricking it about sustainability

I’ve heard a little about Lego Serious Play – a meeting methodology centred around building Lego models and talking about the thinking behind them. Might sound silly (or like play!), but it’s exclusively marketed as perfect for hard-nosed business contexts. My main impressions were that it’s a) quite expensive to train in b) closely tied to the Lego brand and c) reasonably well-respected, for something so playful.

I was, therefore, excited about the opportunity to experience a Lego Serious Play workshop, as part of The Hospital Club’s The Bigger Picture (their rebranded Sustainability Week). We joined Jessica from Creating Meaning for an hour’s introductory taster session. The theme was Sustainability, and after an initial ‘tower’ build to get us remembering the feeling of Lego against the fingers, the models we built were all around this topic.

Speaking of the ‘tower challenge’, we each approached this in a different way. Even calling it a ‘challenge’ reflects the competitiveness that a few of us felt. I’m very proud to say I build the tallest tower, mainly by subverting the whole Lego thing, and plugging long, thin pieces perpendicular to the nobbles. I’m sure those ‘nobbles’ have a technical name!

Already we were seeing how the method brings out different approaches and attitudes. And, as Jessica explained, promotes 100% participation.

In fact, this 100% participation continued, and it was great to hear different perspectives about Sustainability, and the different suggestions for how it could be promoted.

In short, I was impressed. The method, getting people to talk only about their models, really did de-personalise the experience. It allowed everyone to express themselves, contribute, and have their views listened to. I shall investigate the method further!

Everything is awesome. Everything is cool when you’re part of a team – Anonymous